OStatic

Chris Blizzard kindly drew my attention to an update on the improvements being made on the Theora encoder. Though the details given about the advances made are very technical, the end result is visible in the examples shown on the update page.

Blizzard nicely sums up the essence of these updates: Overall, regardless of bitrate, the Theora encoder is showing significant improvement, and is even creating higher quality streams than those encoded with H.264 at numerous bitrates. It's also become evident that at least some of the previous testing that showed Theora lacking were performed with utilities that didn't necessarily mesh well with Theora in the first place (ffmpeg2theora, when linked with a recent version offfmpeg, did not produce the same issues).

A common lament from home videographers is that Linux lacks video editors. It's not exactly true. There's Kino, which edits video and acts as a frontend to dvgrab. Jahshaka edits videos, and uses openGL to add special effects (though many say Jahshaka's strength is its user interface). Cinelerra is a professional grade editor, and while someone working with video regularly might find this is the only option, those needing simple edits and common effects will find it overkill.

There's another alternative for those needing a basic video editor. Open Movie Editor seems plain compared to Kino, but works with more file formats (with fewer hassles). It has a Jahshaka-like interface, without its occasional installation quirks.